This study is double-blinded and placebo-controlled, with two treatment periods one day apart. It is designed to examine the measurement capabilities of a "stress test" for hand OA, which will involve performance of a 30 repetition grip strength test. This test involves 10 times as many efforts as the standard three repetition grip strength test, which performs reasonably well as an outcome measure in clinical trials of rheumatoid arthritis treatment, but is essentially unused in OA trials. While we will evaluate the cumulative grip force exerted, the primary outcomes of interest are pain intensity difference from pretreatment baseline (PID) and patient global assessment of treatment efficacy. Time to remedication with "escape" analgesic may be an alternate primary outcome if a substantial proportion of subjects suffer intolerable pain during the performance of the study.